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Today:
Song And Dance May Not Be Universal Human Behaviors, Study Shows
NEWS | 18 May 2025
It's apparently not something the Northern Aché know how to do – and that challenges most previous research on the topic. "Dance and infant-related song are widely considered universal, a view that has been supported by cross-cultural research, including my own," says Singh. "Given that lullabies have been shown to soothe infants, Aché parents would presumably find them useful." While this study only covers a single group of people, it seems that lullabies and dancing may not be innate for human beings. It'll be interesting to see if anthropologists discover any more communities who never think of dancing or singing lullabies.

Top Stories:
The Secret to Happiness Seems to Depend Upon You, Study Finds
NEWS | 18 May 2025
In modern times, psychologists have tried to measure and boost happiness en masse as a matter of public health, with projects like the World Happiness Report. As previous research has shown, socioeconomic factors wield significant influence on happiness, including things like health, wealth, social connections, and job satisfaction. In the new study, Beck and her colleagues explore the possibility that it doesn't. The surveys measured global life satisfaction over time, plus specific satisfaction in five life domains: health, housing, income, relationships, and work. Roughly half of subjects showed primarily one-way associations between domain satisfactions and life satisfaction, the study found, and about a quarter showed mainly bidirectional associations.

World:
Drinking Alcohol Before Hitting The Sauna Could Be a Deadly Combo
NEWS | 18 May 2025
In the UK, more are now hot-footing their way to the sauna instead of the pub than ever before. But what of going the whole hog and drinking alcohol – before, during and after sauna sessions? Still, the question remains: what are the effects – and risks – of drinking alcohol in the sauna? Another study from Finland found a growing link between accidental sauna deaths and alcohol intoxication. They offer real benefits – but mixing heat with alcohol could be a cocktail that burns more than it soothes.

Current Events:
Scientists Recreated The Ancient Chemical Reactions That May Have Sparked Life
NEWS | 18 May 2025
Life on Earth probably began in warm, underwater 'chemical gardens', rich in hydrogen and iron. "However, links between abiotic H 2 [dihydrogen] production in iron-sulfide chemical gardens simulating [primordial] hydrothermal systems and early life are scarce." "As well as over-expressing some genes of the acetyl CoA metabolism, the archaeans actually grew exponentially." These chemical gardens, the scientists think, fuelled Earth's first microbes. This is evidence that the recipe for acetyl CoA metabolism emerged from the extreme and energy-limited environments where Earth life may have struck its first sparks.

News Flash:
Seismic Waves From Intense Storms Can Ripple Through Earth's Core
NEWS | 18 May 2025
Researchers have now 'heard' the echo of cyclones whirling ocean waters from all the way on the other side of our planet. "Our research uses these microseismic phenomena as an alternative data source to study the Earth's structure beneath Australia," says seismologist Hrvoje Tkalčić from Australian National University. Intense storm activity like cyclones over the ocean produces acoustic energy strong enough to ring through the planet. By the time these vibrations pass through Earth's core though, they're incredibly subtle. The researchers were able to trace these signals back to the waters near Greenland and Newfoundland, stirred up by winter storms.

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Remote Monitoring App
SPONSORED | 18 May 2025
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Latest:
Mystery of T. Rex's Debated North American Origins Finally Solved
NEWS | 18 May 2025
Some say its ancestry is firmly rooted in North America. An international team, led by paleoecologist Cassius Morrison from University College London, now proposes the terrible lizard's 'grandparents' may have instead migrated to North America from Asia across the Bering Strait. "Dozens of T. rex fossils have been unearthed in North America but our findings indicate that the fossils of T. rex's direct ancestor may lie undiscovered still in Asia," Morrison says. "The genus Tyrannosaurus originated in Laramidia from an ancestrally Asian taxon that emigrated to North America during the Late Campanian – Early Maastrichtian," the authors write. While in regions like Asia megaraptors were eventually replaced by tyrannosaurs, in areas such as Australia and Patagonia they evolved to become apex predators, dominating their ecosystems."

Breaking:
Ultra-Processed Foods Linked to Early Signs of Parkinson's Disease
NEWS | 18 May 2025
Yet despite experts' warnings, ultra-processed foods are satisfying, cheap, and easy, making them popular across much of the world. Our research shows that eating too much processed food, like sugary sodas and packaged snacks, might be speeding up early signs of Parkinson's disease," Gao says. Higher consumption of ultra-processed foods was linked with increased risk of almost all early signs of Parkinson's disease used in this study, they found, with the exception of constipation. They show an association between ultra-processed foods and increased risk for early signs of Parkinson's disease, but more research is needed to clarify the nature of the relationship. Many of the early signs – body pain, for example, or daytime sleepiness – are common as people age and don't necessarily herald Parkinson's disease.

Trending:
New Theory Suggests Dark Matter Is Frozen Relics of Light-Speed Particles
NEWS | 18 May 2025
"That's totally antithetical to what dark matter is thought to be – it is cold lumps that give galaxies their mass," Caldwell says. The very fact Cooper pairs exist among electrons means no exotic activity is required to explain the emergence of these slow, dark matter particles. Unlike so many proposals on the identity of the mysterious material known as dark matter, this theory could actually be tested using data we already have at hand. Certain signs found in the cosmic microwave background would be points scored in favor of these fermions being at least one source of dark matter. "We're presenting a new approach to thinking about and possibly identifying dark matter."

This Just In:
AI Discovers Suspected Trigger of Alzheimer's, And Maybe a Treatment
NEWS | 18 May 2025
Researchers from the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego) used AI to discover that a gene recognized as a sign of Alzheimer's disease could be causing it too. The researchers think this could be one of the tipping points triggering Alzheimer's, and explaining the association between PHGDH and the disease. AI modeling was deployed again to examine the structure of this molecule, and how it interacts with PHGDH. Crucially, NCT-503 is able to pass the blood-brain barrier to access neurons and their associated cells, making the new treatment research even more promising. "Unfortunately, treatment options for Alzheimer's disease are very limited," says Zhong.

Today:
Men Are Dying From 'Broken Heart Syndrome' at Twice The Rate of Women
NEWS | 18 May 2025
The technical term is takotsubo cardiomyopathy (TC), a weakening of the heart brought on by physical or emotional stress. This fits in with previous research suggesting this 'broken heart syndrome' is becoming more common in the US. The overall death rate was 6.5 percent. Physical stress TC is more common in men, which may explain the higher numbers of deaths brought on by the condition. "The continued high death rate is alarming, suggesting that more research be done for better treatment and finding new therapeutic approaches to this condition," says Movahed.

Top Stories:
The Most Violent Solar Storm Ever Detected Hit Earth in 12350 BCE
NEWS | 18 May 2025
The aurora australis and borealis are the most well-known manifestations of a geomagnetic storm, but such disturbances can get dangerous when mixed with our technology. This is what researchers did to identify a potential giant geomagnetic storm 14,000 years ago, as explained in a 2023 paper. Other such events have been traced to around 994 CE, 660 BCE, 5259 BCE, and 7176 BCE, with the most recent (and previously largest known) being 774 CE. "The ancient event in 12350 BCE is the only known extreme solar particle event outside of the Holocene epoch, the past ~12,000 years of stable warm climate," Golubenko says. This allowed them to probe the strength, timing, and terrestrial impact of the storm, confirming that it was the biggest solar particle storm that we know about.

World:
Your Walking Style Can Have Surprising Health Benefits, Study Says
NEWS | 18 May 2025
A follow-up study suggested it is never too late to benefit from brisk walking. For example, the benefit of brisk walking over light-intensity walking in lowering cancer risk is less certain. A recent study suggested that although total walking was associated with reduction in 13 different types of cancers, there was no added value from brisk walking. Context is also important here, with the mental health and cognitive benefits of walking thought to be enhanced when walking through nature. So called "nature prescriptions" for clinical populations have harnessed these principles to increase walking activity and improving both mental and physical health.

Current Events:
Dark Matter Could Be Evolving, And The Implications Are Profound
NEWS | 18 May 2025
While there have been several models proposing an evolving dark energy, the idea of evolving dark matter hasn't been widely considered. In this work, the authors look at both evolving dark energy and evolving dark matter and argue that the latter is a much better fit to observational data. Since the evolution of the cosmos depends in part on the ratio of energy density to matter density, a model with constant dark matter and evolving dark energy will always appear similar to a model with evolving dark matter and constant dark energy. While they can't account for all the dark matter of the Universe, they are a form of hot dark matter. At this point, evolving dark matter is worth considering.

News Flash:
Your Genetic Risk For Disease Can Be Changed by Your Environment
NEWS | 18 May 2025
Since scientists mapped out the human genome in 2003, researchers have learned that genetics also play a large role in a person's disease risk. Studies that focus on estimating disease heritability – that is, how much genetic differences explain differences in disease risk – usually attribute a substantial fraction of disease variation to genetics. Every complex disease has both genetic and environmental risk factors. Instead, there are usually hundreds of variations that each have small but cumulative effects on a person's disease risk, making them hard to find. We argue that they can help researchers better understand the underlying biological mechanisms that lead from genetic and environmental risks to disease, and how genetic variation leads to differences in disease risk between people.